The Role of Chronic Stress Level and Resilience in Excessive Mobile Phone Use by Students

The article addresses the excessive use of mobile phones among students. We adopt Billieux's definition of excessive mobile phone use as the loss of control over phone use that leads to significant negative physical, psychological, social, work, or familial consequences. This study focuses on the social-psychological effects of excessive mobile phone use, specifically its relationship with chronic stress (which is considered a risk factor) and resilience (which is considered a protective factor). We emphasize the often irreversible impacts on students' mental and physical health and the importance of preventive measures. The study involved 174 students, including 132 females (75.9%) and 42 males (24.1%), with a mean age of 18.67 ± 0.648 years. By gender, the mean age was 18.58 ± 0.567 for females and 18.93 ± 0.808 for males. Participants were students of humanities and technical disciplines from various universities in Kazakhstan.

The Leipzig Express Test for Chronic Stress (LKCS) was used to diagnose the level of chronic stress; the Resilience Scale (RS-25) was used to diagnose the level of resilience; several questionnaires were used to diagnose excessive use of mobile phone: the Test of Mobile Phone Dependence brief (TMD brief), Scale PUMP: Problematic Use of Mobile Phone, 27-item Mobile Phone Problem Use Scale (MPPUS-27).

It was found that:
• The higher the level of chronic stress, in general or in its individual indicators, the higher the tendency toward excessive mobile phone use among students.
• The level of resilience is correlated with only one of the indicators of excessive mobile phone use, “negative impact on other activities,” and is also indirectly correlated with the factor of time. That is, at a low level of resilience, the mobile phone will be used for more time than planned, or in general, a significant amount of time will be spent on the phone.
• The propensity for excessive mobile phone use is significantly higher among female students compared to male students. At the same time, students in humanities programs are more prone to excessive mobile phone use compared to students in technical programs. One of the more frequent manifestations of excessive mobile phone use in students is the failure to fulfill their obligations to others or the use of the phone despite problems in relationships with others, which is less common among female students.
• The latent stressors that have the greatest impact on the propensity for excessive mobile phone use were identified: loss of control and the presence of topics with strong negative emotional associations, which are often related to the students' experiences of psychological trauma.

The role of stress and resilience in excessive mobile phone use by students was deduced, taking into account gender and study profile. The obtained results can be used to develop programs for preventive measures against excessive mobile phone use among students, as one of the necessary prerequisites for the preservation of students' physical and mental health, taking into account the role of resilience and stress tolerance.